March 19, 2010

The Real Sarah Palin

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Via Dave Weigel, Variety has your Sarah Palin news of the day. She’s coming to basic cable!

A&E and Discovery appear to be the front-runners to land the untitled Alaska-themed series, to be produced by Mark Burnett Prods.

….As first reported by Entertainment Weekly, the Palin project will center on interesting characters, traditions and attractions in the 49th state — with the ex-VP candidate as a guide. Burnett and Palin pitched the show to all four major networks — but given the travelogue nature of the series, it ultimately made more sense for a cable network, insiders said.

…What’s fueling the interest? Even though the show promises to be completely devoid of politics, Palin has a loyal following — and even folks who detest her politics may be curious enough to tune in and see what she’s up to.

Jon Stewart must be licking his chops over this. And anyone who believes Palin’s show will be “completely devoid of politics” is either delusional or lying. What’s the over/under on how many episodes it takes before we have one set smack in the blasted hellscape that is ANWR?

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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